I've always been a straight-A student, and I'd never questioned the value of that. Now with college apps looming, I'd started to wonder why grades matter so much. Why is getting into a “good” college so important? For the first time I'm questioning material success and realizing that the only reason I continue to complete pointless assignments and study for tests that prepare me for other tests (the AP) is because I'm expected to.
My mom and I argued for an hour when my report card came home last semester. I'd gotten a B+ in AP Chem.
“How will you get into an Ivy League school with B's?” she yelled. I asked why I would want to go to an Ivy.
“To get a good job,” she replied.
“I don't need a high-paying job to be happy. Why would I want a stressful job? Why would I want to get into a highly selective college?”
“Because you can make it,” she answered. Who am I to disappoint my family?
It's like that joke, the one where a mother is taking a walk with her young children and a stranger comes up and starts fussing over them, saying how adorable they are, asking how old they are. The mother replies, “The lawyer is five, and the doctor is three.” Are we, as children, teenagers, students, even professionals, defined by others' expectations?
I don't know where I want to go with my life, and others know where they want me to go with it, so I might as well follow their wishes since I haven't yet decided on my own. I just wonder if I'll realize some day that what they want isn't what I want. And then will it be too late to go back and start over?
My mom and I argued for an hour when my report card came home last semester. I'd gotten a B+ in AP Chem.
“How will you get into an Ivy League school with B's?” she yelled. I asked why I would want to go to an Ivy.
“To get a good job,” she replied.
“I don't need a high-paying job to be happy. Why would I want a stressful job? Why would I want to get into a highly selective college?”
“Because you can make it,” she answered. Who am I to disappoint my family?
It's like that joke, the one where a mother is taking a walk with her young children and a stranger comes up and starts fussing over them, saying how adorable they are, asking how old they are. The mother replies, “The lawyer is five, and the doctor is three.” Are we, as children, teenagers, students, even professionals, defined by others' expectations?
I don't know where I want to go with my life, and others know where they want me to go with it, so I might as well follow their wishes since I haven't yet decided on my own. I just wonder if I'll realize some day that what they want isn't what I want. And then will it be too late to go back and start over?
© ACADEMIA ARALAR. Estella, Navarra.
I have always thought that grades have no real sence. It is true that you have to study, but taking an A o a B if you have study dose not really matter. I mean, you know thse subject, maybe the questions were not easy to understand or you have a bad day.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the only real aim of schools is to reach a good job, when it should be to make people knowledge bigger.
Many students are under a lot of pressure, as they are expected to be and act in a specific kind of way since they are young, not letting them made their own decisions and live their life the way they want to.
ReplyDeleteI think, specialists should give speeches to parents for them to understand the importance of letting children make their own decisions, and mistakes so that they can learn from them, and find out what they want to be.
The aim of school should be to go on on the levels learning things without depending on the marks you get on the exams because, as Estibaliz has said, you can know that unit really well and have a bad day or do a bad exam. Likewise, at the same time as one student do an exam bad and he/she know everything, another one, could do an extraordinary exam cheatting.
ReplyDeleteAdults have to teach us to make the right decision, but whatever we want because it´s going to be our future. Also is important to make mistakes, from them you can learn a lot.
This is a fantastic article to think about the importance we want to give to get an A or a B. They have always told to us how important is it to get a high mark if we want to get in the best university to study a grade with which we are going to be well-paid in the future.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I've always given a lot of importance to this and reading this type of news I realise that what they have to teach us is not to achieve the best for the others, is to keep making bigger our knowledge in any way.